Book Review – Irving Berlin: New York Genius

Irving Berlin’s Jewishness permeated his songs

By James Kaplan

Jewish Lives: Yale University Press

424 pages

Reviewed by Murray Citron

The jacket for Irving Berlin: New York Genius shows a small man of middle age, neatly dressed, who might well be a boo…

'First, We Fled' traces a family’s history

In his new book, retired educator Lorne Rachlis, a past-president of Temple Israel of Ottawa, traces his family’s history from his great-great-grandparents in the Pale of Settlement to his own grandchildren. In this article, Lorne tells the story of how the book came to be.

I have written…

Philip Roth’s what-if scenario

I cover antisemitism on a daily basis. This is why ‘The Plot Against America’ is the scariest show I’ve seen.

By Gabe Friedman

(JTA) – I wasn’t expecting HBO’s “The Plot Against America,” David Simon’s miniseries adaptation of the Philip Roth novel, to scar me the way it …

Book Review: Standing up to the three-headed monster of Jew-hatred

By Rubin Friedman

How to Fight Anti-Semitism

By Bari Weiss

Crown

224 pages

The rise of hatred against Jews and things Jewish has increased Jewish community anxiety about this phenomenon and its many manifestations. While the United Nations has reached a point of having to address this r…

Ottawa artist Sharon Katz creates video for experimental opera in Israel

By Louise Rachlis

As a producer-director of short animated films, animated riffs, and mixed-media artworks, Ottawa artist Sharon Katz exhibits widely in Canada and abroad.

Most recently, she turned her creative talents to collaboration with Israeli composer Kiki Keren-Huss for a new experi…